D&D 5E Professions in 5e

[Li Shenron]

I think what the OP is having a hard time with is figuring out how to model the characters that exist in his/her imagination. How can he/she modal a character who is a master of drill and ceremony? He/she can take the soldier background and Perform skill, but that also makes his/her character an equally good actor, which the character is not.

When the game had 40+ different skills (3.0 edition), players were complaining they were too many and started asking for some skills to be merged (3.5 edition) then merged even more (5th edition), and even today some people go around saying to keep merging them or just give proficiency to all checks with some of the 6 abilities. There are even a few who say 6 abilities are too many and only want 2 for brawns & brains.

This is a false problem. You want a juggler that is not an actor? Well, juggle more and act less!

It is a players' failure to believe that the numbers on their character sheet define who they are more than their behaviour.

 

[akr71]

Fair, but have you played it (D&D minus fiddly bits) for any length of time? You might find it liberating.

OTOH you might not.

...
5e is super easy to modify and tweak to fit to taste. In many cases, you can just straight up import old edition rules wholesale, with maybe some adjustments to DCs or the numbers due to bounded accuracy

The OP could also write his or her own fiddly bits. That might be immensely satisfying too.

 

[Undrave]

Trying to use 5e as a physics engine will only lead to madness.

 

[Parmandur]

I think what the OP is having a hard time with is figuring out how to model the characters that exist in his/her imagination. How can he/she modal a character who is a master of drill and ceremony? He/she can take the soldier background and Perform skill, but that also makes his/her character an equally good actor, which the character is not.

The Players Handbook instructs the player to visualize a character before starting to build it using the in game tool. If my visualization cannot be modeled by the in game tools, finding them lacking is a natural consequence.

The PHB does a very poor job explain what type of characters can be modeled suitably and which cannot. The box labeled "fantasy character" obviously includes "master of drill and ceremony",but the same does not provide the tools to create it that same character.

In essence, I think the PHB poorly defines its narrative limits, and as a result, some players come away disappointed.

I see nothing in what is described that is not covered by the PHB sections on Backgrounds and Ability Checks...

 

[prabe]

I'm confused about your use of the word "can". I understand one can use those approaches. However, I'm much interested in the lens of "should" and what the use of each approach models inside the game world.

That's not an unreasonable request. At least, I'm taking it as a request ...

I'm going to be specific and use as an example recognizing the content of a bas-relief in a temple complex.

In the instance of autosuccess with Proficiency in Religion, you're modeling content that reflects knowledge basic to the study of Religion--whatever that means in the setting.

If you let everyone roll, but modify the DC for those who have Proficiency in Religion, you're modeling content that is
at least somewhat esoteric, and that people who have studied religion are much more likely to recognize the content, but it's possible someone has come across it in another context.

Applying Advantage to the rolls of those with the Proficiency, or Disadvantage to those without, isn't much different as far as what it models, but it's a little more player-facing--they know they're rolling two dice, after all. Disadvantage for those without Proficiency seems to model content that those who haven't studied it are really unlikely to have come across; Advantage for those with Proficiency seems to model information that is important in the field but not necessarily core to it (or you'd be allowing auto-success). Adjusting the DCs is a little more granular, but maybe you like the way (Dis)Advantage plays differently in the middle of the d20 than at the edges of the range.

Allowing everyone to roll, and granting Advantage to someone who has Proficiency in both Religion and History models subject matter that is is somehow in the intersection of the two fields.

 

[DEFCON 1]

There is another methodology a DM could use to change up how ability checks and skill proficiency are presented and used in their game. This involves two things:

First, use the Variant Ability Score alternative rule in the game that doesn't connect one ability score to one skill. Instead, the DM selects the ability score to use based upon what is being done, and then if the PC is proficient in a skill that could apply to the check, then they can add their proficiency bonus.

Second, change up the skill list by adding more broad categories of knowledge as skills. Right now the game provides Arcana, Religion, History and Nature as options. What are other broad categories of medieval life you could add? Commerce. Nobility. Dungeoneering. Folklore. Military. Sailing. Mechanics. Urban Life. These are just a few ideas, but you can add more if you can think of them, or if you want to be much more specific on certain things (like dividing up Arcana into "Spellcraft" and "Planar Lore" for instance.)

Now, you combine these two together while removing most/all the other skills from the list. Any time someone needs to do something, the DM asks them to make the applicable ability check... and the player then sees if their knowledge of the category that the check involves would apply (and if it does, they'd add their proficiency bonus.) What this does is it changes the granularity of how actions are applied. No longer would a PC have proficiency in "Acrobatics"... instead, they would make a balancing attempt using a DEX check, and where they were attempting this DEX check would impact whether they had a proficiency they could apply. So if the PC was running along rooftops, it would be DEX (Urban Life). If they were on a boat it would be DEX (Sailing). Across tree branches would be DEX (Nature). On slick ledges underground would be DEX (Dungeoneering).

Likewise... there would be no basic Persuasion or Intimidation proficiencies. Rather, anything to do with communicating with people would be CHA checks plus your applicable knowledge base. To convince the local baron would be CHA (Nobility). To haggle with a shopkeep would be CHA (Commerce). Shaking down the local village riffraff would be CHA (Folklore). Praying to your deity or your fiendish patron for help would be CHA (Religion).

Is this a perfect or better system than what we currently have? Nope. But it is an alternative. One that incorporates more character backgrounds and jobs and knowledge directly into the game's skill system, rather than it being a strictly "Rulings not rules" application on the DM's part. Maybe it's useful to you? Maybe it's not? But I do know that indeed I have incorporated several of these knowledge categories into my amended skill lists for my games and they have worked out well for me. So take it as you may.

 

[Undrave]

What are other broad categories of medieval life you could add? Commerce. Nobility. Dungeoneering. Folklore. Military. Sailing. Mechanics. Urban Life.

4e had a Dungeoneering and Streetwise skill and I feel like both are somewhat missing... More so Streetwise than Dungeoneering. Streetwise allowed you to gather rumours in a city, get the lay of the land and navigate the city. It could easily have Commerce folded in and form some sort of Urban skill (opposed to Nature). Dungeoneering wasn't quite as well defined since it covered both natural caverns (which are now simply Nature), the Underdark and building exploration (architecture for exemple could be a Dungeoneering check).

Sailing would probably be best represented by proficiency in sail boats and other water vehicles. Folklore and Nobility could easily be folded into History, same with Military really, but I would give out advantage based on your background.

 

[DEFCON 1]

4e had a Dungeoneering and Streetwise skill and I feel like both are somewhat missing... More so Streetwise than Dungeoneering. Streetwise allowed you to gather rumours in a city, get the lay of the land and navigate the city. It could easily have Commerce folded in and form some sort of Urban skill (opposed to Nature). Dungeoneering wasn't quite as well defined since it covered both natural caverns (which are now simply Nature), the Underdark and building exploration (architecture for exemple could be a Dungeoneering check).

Sailing would probably be best represented by proficiency in sail boats and other water vehicles. Folklore and Nobility could easily be folded into History, same with Military really, but I would give out advantage based on your background.

Well, the real point was that the OP wanted skills for more categories of knowledge. So even though Vehicles (Water) is an available tool... having a Sailing skill (or whatever water-based term you wanted to use) was a way to incorporate it into the skill list for them. Same way combining other knowledges into smaller groups (like putting Folklore and Nobility under history) runs counter to the point-- the system I was talking about was to broaden the number of knowledge groupings to let PCs select from, rather than condense them.

 

[Parmandur]

That's not an unreasonable request. At least, I'm taking it as a request ...

I'm going to be specific and use as an example recognizing the content of a bas-relief in a temple complex.

In the instance of autosuccess with Proficiency in Religion, you're modeling content that reflects knowledge basic to the study of Religion--whatever that means in the setting.

If you let everyone roll, but modify the DC for those who have Proficiency in Religion, you're modeling content that is
at least somewhat esoteric, and that people who have studied religion are much more likely to recognize the content, but it's possible someone has come across it in another context.

Applying Advantage to the rolls of those with the Proficiency, or Disadvantage to those without, isn't much different as far as what it models, but it's a little more player-facing--they know they're rolling two dice, after all. Disadvantage for those without Proficiency seems to model content that those who haven't studied it are really unlikely to have come across; Advantage for those with Proficiency seems to model information that is important in the field but not necessarily core to it (or you'd be allowing auto-success). Adjusting the DCs is a little more granular, but maybe you like the way (Dis)Advantage plays differently in the middle of the d20 than at the edges of the range.

Allowing everyone to roll, and granting Advantage to someone who has Proficiency in both Religion and History models subject matter that is is somehow in the intersection of the two fields.

Don't forget the category of only those trained in the Skill can roll, and they have a chance of failure! Not for central things, bit for the given example, maybe the Paladin is the only one trained in Religion to get a clue to a secret room, but the DC is 20. A significant chance of failure, bit the success can't be handled by a Rogue untrained in Religion.

Or Survival. Not going to let the pampered Noble Wizard hunt with no Skill Training and overshadow the Outlander Fighter...

 

[prabe]

Don't forget the category of only those trained in the Skill can roll, and they have a chance of failure! Not for central things, bit for the given example, maybe the Paladin is the only one trained in Religion to get a clue to a secret room, but the DC is 20. A significant chance of failure, bit the success can't be handled by a Rogue untrained in Religion.

Or Survival. Not going to let the pampered Noble Wizard hunt with no Skill Training and overshadow the Outlander Fighter...

You are correct. That example fell out of my brain while I was typing that. I suspect (to address the modeling question) you're modeling that (in the Religion case I was using) it's something that's only going to come up if you actively study Religion, but it's not foundational to anything. Or, I suppose you could gate it behind membership or experience--the reference is in the Library of the School of the World, and you've spent some time there, so you get to roll.